Encyclopedia of

Aztec Religion

At the time of Spanish contact in the sixteenth century, the Aztec were
the preeminent power in Mexico, and to the east controlled lands bordering
the Maya region. Whereas the Maya were neither culturally nor politically
unified as a single entity in the sixteenth century, the Aztec were an
empire integrated by the state language of Nahuatl as well as a complex
religious system. As the principal political force during the Spanish
conquest, the Aztec were extensively studied at this time. Due to
sixteenth-century manuscripts written both by the Aztec and Spanish
clerics, a great deal is known of Aztec religious beliefs and ritual,
including death rituals.

Probably the most discussed and vilified aspect of Aztec religion is human
sacrifice, which is amply documented by archaeological excavations,
pre-Hispanic art, and colonial accounts. To the Aztec, cosmic balance and
therefore life would not be possible without offering sacrificial blood to
forces of life and fertility, such as the sun, rain, and the earth. Thus
in Aztec myth, the gods sacrificed themselves for the newly created sun to
move on its path. The offering of children to the rain gods was considered
a repayment for their bestowal of abundant water and crops. Aside from
sacrificial offerings, death itself was also a means of feeding and
balancing cosmic forces. Many pre-Hispanic scenes illustrate burial as an
act of the feeding the earth, with the bundled dead in the open maw of the
earth monster. Just as day became night, death was a natural and necessary
fate for the living.

The sixteenth-century accounts written in Spanish and Nahuatl provide
detailed descriptions of Aztec concepts of death and the afterlife. One of
the most important accounts of Aztec mortuary rites and beliefs concerning
the hereafter occurs in Book 3 of the
Florentine Codex,
an encyclopedic treatise of Aztec culture compiled by the Franciscan Fray
Bernardino de Sahagún. According to this and other early accounts,
the treatment of the body and the destiny of the soul in the afterlife
depended in large part on one's social role and mode of death, in
contrast to Western beliefs that personal behavior in life determines
one's afterlife. People who eventually succumbed to illness and old
age went to Mictlan, the dark underworld presided by the skeletal god of
death, Mictlantecuhtli, and his consort Mictlancihuatl. In preparation for
this journey, the corpse was dressed in paper vestments, wrapped and tied
in a cloth bundle, and then cremated, along with a dog to serve as a guide
through the underworld. The path to Mictlan traversed a landscape fraught
with dangers, including fierce beasts, clashing mountains, and
obsidian-bladed winds. Having passed these perils, the soul reached
gloomy, soot-filled Mictlan, "the place of mystery, the place of
the unfleshed, the place where there is arriving, the place with no smoke
hole, the place with no fireplace" (Sahagún 1978, Book 3, p.
42). With no exits, Mictlan was a place of no return.

Aside from the dreary, hellish realm of Mictlan, there was the afterworld
of Tlalocan, the paradise of Tlaloc, the god of rain and water. A region
of eternal spring, abundance, and wealth, this place was for those who
died by lightning, drowning, or were afflicted by particular diseases,
such as pustules or gout. Rather than being cremated, these individuals
were buried whole with images of the mountain gods, beings closely related
to Tlaloc. Another source compiled by Sahagún, the
Primeros Memoriales,
contains a fascinating account of a noble woman who, after being
accidentally buried alive, journeys to the netherworld paradise of
Tlalocan to receive a gift and message from the rain god.

Book 3 of the
Florentine Codex
describes a celestial paradise. In sharp contrast to the victims of
disease dwelling in Mictlan, this region was occupied by warriors and
lords who died by sacrifice or combat in honor of the sun god Tonatiuh.
The bodies of the slain heroes were burned in warrior bundles, with birds
and butterflies symbolizing their fiery souls. These warrior souls
followed the sun to

A group of men in front of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in
Mexico perform an Aztec dance during the feast of
the Virgin of Guadalupe on December 12, the most important religious
holiday in Mexico. Here they reenact the prepara
tion of a sacrifice, a recognition of the inextricable
interdependence of life and death to the Aztec.

SERGIO DORANTES/ CORBIS

zenith in the sky, where they would then scatter to sip flowers in this
celestial paradise. The setting western sun would then be greeted by
female warriors, which were the souls of those women who died in
childbirth. In Aztec thought, the pregnant woman was like a warrior who
symbolically captured her child for the Aztec state in the painful and
bloody battle of birth. Considered as female aspects of defeated heroic
warriors, women dying in childbirth became fierce goddesses who carried
the setting sun into the netherworld realm of Mictlan. In contrast to the
afterworld realms of Mictlan and Tlalocan, the paradise of warriors did
relate to how one behaved on earth, as this was the region for the
valorous who both lived and died as heroes. This ethos of bravery and
self-sacrifice was a powerful ideological means to ensure the commitment
of warriors to the growth and well-being of the empire.

For the Aztec, yearly ceremonies pertaining to the dead were performed
during two consecutive twenty-day months, the first month for children,
and the second for adults, with special focus on the cult of the warrior
souls. Although then occurring in the late summertime of August, many
aspects of these ceremonies have continued in the fall Catholic
celebrations of All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day. Along
with the ritual offering of food for the visiting dead, marigolds
frequently play a major part in the contemporary celebrations, a flower
specifically related to the dead in Aztec ritual.

Sahagún, Fray Bernardino de.
Florentine Codex: General History of the Things of New Spain,
translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble. 13 vols. Santa
Fe, NM: School of American Research, 1950–1982.